Part 3

"What do I owe the world?" he interrupted. "I ask from it nothing but peace and solitude, and surely even the most insignificant has a right to that without incurring responsibilities. Why, Marian, I stand here upon this Point, as the little steamers leave their trail of smoke behind them, and thank God that for one day, three days, a week, we are cut off from the world. There is nothing I love so much as this separation from my fellow-men."

"Then how fortunate, after all--" she began, but he interrupted her.

"That is another story," he insisted. "I am speaking of what life means to me to-day, not what it might have meant under other circumstances."

They strolled slowly back into the garden and settled themselves upon a stone seat which commanded a superb view of the surrounding country. It was her heart rather than her eyes which controlled Marian now, and she saw before her nothing but this man-grown boy, who at an earlier time in her life had exercised an absorbing influence upon her. It was her heart, still loyal to the friendship which remained, struggling to find the right word which should start in motion the machinery to bring the latent potentiality into action.

"Your ideas are no different now than then," she said at length, "except that time has intensified them. You used to compare what you found in books with what you found in life, to the distinct disadvantage of the realities."

"Yes," Hamlen admitted; "and it is just as true to-day."

"Do you know why?" she demanded pointedly.

"Because life is so full of insincerity."

"No," she protested, "you are wrong, absolutely wrong. The real reason lies in you. You have always given of yourself in your intellectual pursuits, and have received in kind. In your relations with life you have never given of yourself, and again you have received in kind. Philip, Philip! why don't you study yourself as you do your books, and even now learn the lesson you need to know?"

"Was that why--back there--" he began.

She paused for a moment as the conversation took her back to the earlier days.

"You thought me changeable," she evaded the question; "but for that you yourself were responsible. You drew me to you with irresistible force, then repelled me by your intolerance of all those lighter interests which were natural to youth of our age. Your letters stimulated my ambition, your conversation stirred in me all that was best; but as soon as we were separated I felt a lack which for a long time I was unable to understand."

"Why did you come," he asked, "to awaken these memories I have tried so hard to forget?" but she seemed not to hear him.

"Then I realized what a dream it was," she continued. "Music to you meant canon and fugue, counterpoint and diminished sevenths; to me it was the invitation to dance. You had no friends, and I was frightened by your willingness to be alone. You had nothing in common with me or my friends; you gave my heart nothing to feed upon except intellect--intellect, and I found myself one moment beneath its hypnotic influence, the next striving to break away from its oppression. Perhaps this was what you had in mind, Philip, that we two run off to some island such as this, to spend our lives in Utopia, alone except for ourselves and your books."

"For me, that would have been all I could have asked."

"But no one, Philip, can live on that alone. We need to draw from our companionship with others in order to give of it to each other. And you forget"--she smiled mischievously--"that when Aristotle begins to bore you he can be placed back upon the shelf. You couldn't do that with a wife! Admit, dear friend, that I or any other woman would have made you utterly wretched."

"I will admit that of any woman other than you."

They rose as by mutual impulse and strolled about the garden for several moments in silence, the thoughts of each centered upon the past.

"See this wild honey." Hamlen touched the curiously formed leaf. "It took me months to make it twine about that tree."

"How long would it have taken to make a baby's fingers twine about your heart?" Marian asked meaningly.

A twinge of pain shot across his face. "Have you--children?" he asked.

"Forgive me, Philip," she answered contritely. "Yes," in answer to his question; "a daughter, whom you shall meet at the hotel, and a big, strapping son. He's a senior at Harvard now, and his name is--Philip."

Hamlen suddenly seized her hand and pressed it to his lips. "Your husband won't begrudge me that," he said, with a quaver in his voice.

"Thank God!" Marian cried unexpectedly. "It is a relief to find even a small defect in that intellectual armor of yours! Philip, you are a humbug, and you deceive no one but yourself! It is not solitude which you love, it is not friendship which you despise; it is simply that you have made a virtue out of a condition which exists because you don't know how to change it. Let me help you now."

"How can the leopard change his spots?" he demanded incredulously.

"Go back with us when we sail for New York week after next. Leave things here just as they are, and keep this wonderful spot as a retreat when life becomes too strenuous. Harry and I will return here with you if you wish us to, and will introduce so many serpents into your Garden of Eden that you'll relegate us to the cliff while you take refuge in your library. But between now and that time go back with us into that life which is your life. Place yourself where you can feel the competition of what goes on about you. Try pushing against the current, and learn the joy of contact with something which opposes. Study the people around you, and make friends--it's not too late, with your splendid personality and with me to show you how. Come and get acquainted with your namesake. Help him to learn from you what you can teach him better than any one I know, and learn from him what his youthfulness can teach you. Will you do it, Philip? Will you let this wonderful work you've done here be the means and not the end? Will you put your accomplishments where they can be of value, instead of hoarding them, as a miser does his gold?"

He stood watching her wonderful animation as she spoke with a conviction which swept him off his feet. In the past she had listened to him, and he could but be conscious of the domination which his mind had held over hers; now he knew their positions to be reversed. Was this what the world had given her? And the boy--Philip, named after him. Why was it that the lessons he had taught himself during all these years proved so inadequate to combat the yearning which he felt within him?

Marian was not slow to sense the conflict in his heart, nor to follow up her advantage.

"What have you really accomplished, Philip?" she asked quietly. "Be generous in sharing your splendid development with us."

"I could not give this up," he protested.

"Of course you couldn't, and you should not," she assented. "Give up nothing, but simply add to what you have by assimilating from others. I want you to know my husband, my children, and my friends, and I want them to know you. Say that you will return with us, Philip."

He gazed at her helplessly, then turned his head aside. The emotion against which he had fought for twenty years had escaped from his control, and he was ashamed that another should see what he knew his face betrayed.

"It is impossible," he said, when he was himself again; "it would not be fair."

"To whom?" she demanded.

"To you--or to your husband--"

"Nonsense! We all understand one another too well for that! It is the boy who needs you and whom you need."

Hamlen turned to her again. "The boy," he repeated after her--"Philip! You would let him come into my life?"

"I desire nothing so much," she answered resolutely, a great joy surging in her heart as she seemed to see the barrier between him and life crumbling before her attack.

"Would the boy permit it? I might not be able--"

"Let me be judge of that," she smiled.

The man passed his hand wearily over his eyes as Mrs. Thatcher watched his uncertainty with fearfulness and yet with eager expectancy. She knew that she could say no more, that there was danger in bringing further pressure upon this spirit already extended to its extremest tension; and yet she longed to take advantage of what she had gained in awakening the latent human element and in disturbing the complacency which habit had established upon premises so false.

"Oh, Marian!" Hamlen cried at length, in a voice so full of suffering that it staggered her; "the world is not to be trusted even when you hold it up so temptingly before me. It always has been false and always will be so for me. Each time I have given it the chance it has struck me a harder blow than before. No, Marian, I can't expose myself again. If I could make myself a part of some one else--if this boy-- No, no! I couldn't take the risk. You mustn't ask me. You mean it kindly, but--"

"Trust me," Marian said softly. "Come," she continued, nodding in the direction of the returning party. "I will tell Harry that you are dining with us to-night at the 'Princess.'"

* * * * *

IV

* * * * *

It was in the long, spacious dining-room of the "Princess" that Cosden pointed out the Thatcher party to Huntington, and Hamlen was with them. Naturally enough Huntington's eyes first rested on the girl's face, and in it he found enough that was reminiscent to cause a start. It was Marian Seymour as she must have looked when he knew her, but not at all as he had come to think of her during the intervening years. How ridiculously young she was! But Huntington had discovered that young people were getting to look younger every year now. It almost annoyed him, whenever he went to Cambridge to straighten out some mix-up of nephew Billy's, to see how much smaller and younger the students were to-day than when he was there. He remembered distinctly that he and his mates had been men when he was in college; but the present generation was made up of youngsters who should not be allowed abroad without their nurses.

Miss Thatcher, whom Cosden pointed out to him, came within the same category. She carried herself with a dignity not always seen in girls of her age, but she was undeniably young. Then his glance passed from her to the older woman whom he took to be her mother, and he found himself guilty of staring shamelessly. This was undoubtedly the Marian Seymour of sainted memory, now delightfully matured into an extremely attractive matron of thirty-eight or forty. The slight figure had changed but little from what he remembered; the face still showed traces of its former mischievous vivacity, even though it had become more decorous. Such changes as he saw were only those which come in the natural development of a charming girl into a well set-up woman of the world. So this was the genius who would have presided over his household if he had happened to find her at home upon either of those two momentous occasions, or if he had happened to discover her in Europe on that eventful trip and had happened to tell her of his devotion, and, incidentally, she had happened to respond to his declaration of undying affection.

His inspection was as complete and analytic as the distance between the two tables would permit. She was a fascinating woman, he acknowledged, and yet--she was so different from what he had pictured her. The wife with whom he had mentally lived these twenty years he himself had created out of the all-too-scanty materials of memory, added to substantially by what his imagination had skilfully selected of what he thought she ought to be. He had not been more successful in his creation than Nature herself, he was forced to admit, but while looking at Mrs. Thatcher he experienced the mortifying sensation of being a self-convicted bigamist.

Curiously, he had never thought of her as growing older along with him. His glance returned to the daughter's face, and in it he found a closer semblance to what his mind had pictured. She was more mature than her mother had been, yet she possessed many of the same physical characteristics. Was it possible that she might have been his daughter? Here came the third distinct shock. For the first time he had something against which to measure his own age, and involuntarily he touched his heavy head of hair to reassure himself that baldness, that advertisement of advancing years, had not overtaken him in the moment.

"Well," Cosden interrupted his reveries; "I'm waiting to hear your first impressions."

Huntington started guiltily, as if his friend had witnessed the gymnastics his mind had executed. It was natural that Cosden, being nearest to him, should come in for the force of the reaction.

"How do you suppose I can express an opinion on a girl half-way across a room the size of this?" he answered with as much asperity as ever crept into the evenness of his tone.

Cosden looked up surprised. "Why, Monty!" he expostulated, "don't get peevish!"

"Don't bother me with foolish questions," was the ungracious rejoinder. "I'm studying the situation. Later I'll give you my impressions."

"But you've seen her," Cosden persisted. "What do you think of the perspective?"

"She is very young," Huntington replied, regaining his composure and realizing that to fall in with Cosden's mood was easier than to explain his own.

"She's twenty--just the right age for a man thirty-eight," was the complacent reply. "I've figured it all out. A woman grows old faster than a man, and eighteen years is just the proper handicap."

"Which is her husband?" Huntington asked.

"Her husband?" Cosden repeated after him.

"I mean her mother's husband," Huntington corrected hastily; "which one is Mr. Thatcher?"

"The man with the smooth face; I don't know the others. We'll meet them later."

As the party left the dining-room Mr. Thatcher recognized Cosden and fell behind to greet him.

"Well met!" he exclaimed cordially, after being presented to Huntington. "It is a relief to see some one I know. Down here on a vacation trip, I suppose?"

"Why--yes," Cosden hesitated, seeing some deeper meaning behind the bromidic question; "that is, I thought so until I saw you. Now I'm not quite sure."

Thatcher laughed. "I had the same idea, but I can't seem to get away from business; it pursues me! I've stumbled onto something--not very tremendous, but still it may be a good thing. I'd be glad to have you look it over with me if you care to. We'll discuss it later if you don't object to talking shop during leisure hours."

Cosden's face assumed that keen, resourceful expression which his friends knew so well. "I'm never too much at leisure to discuss business," he said.

"Good! Now, when you and Mr. Huntington have finished dinner, join us on the piazza and we'll all have our coffee together."

Huntington looked at his friend significantly as Thatcher moved away. "I didn't come down here on a business trip," he suggested.

"It won't interfere with you at all," Cosden reassured him. "Thatcher is a big man, and has a good eye for things. What he has in mind may be well worth looking into."

"So long as you don't let it divert us from our main purpose I won't object," Huntington conceded gravely; "but the spirit of the chase is on me, and I can't mix sport and business. This is the first time I have ever approached a girl from a matrimonial point of view, even vicariously. I'm beginning to enjoy it and I refuse to be thrown off the scent."

* * * * *

There is no moon like a Bermuda moon. The contrast between its soft yet brilliant light--as it fell first upon the harbor, throwing the islands into silhouette, then flooding the piazza--and the electric glare, out of which the two men stepped ten minutes later, made a deep impression upon Huntington. The eyes of his friend, however, were focused upon the little party, chatting merrily about the table, awaiting their arrival.

"I had them postpone our coffee," Thatcher explained as he presented Cosden to the Stevenses and to Hamlen, and Huntington to each. "We shall enjoy it the more for having you with us."

Huntington found himself sitting between the daughter and Hamlen, while Cosden sat next to Mrs. Thatcher across the table. There had been no recognition, and Huntington was glad of it; he preferred to introduce the subject in his own way and at his own time. The girl, however, had already discovered a bond.

"Aren't you Billy Huntington's uncle?" she asked.

"Yes," he admitted; "but where in the world did you meet him?"

"He is a particular friend of my brother Philip's," she explained. "Philip is a year ahead of him at Harvard, you know, but they are great pals. My brother always has him at the house whenever he's in New York."

"Well, well!" laughed Huntington. "The young rascal never told me anything about it! But wait a minute--Phil Thatcher--why, of course! Billy has had him in to dine with me several times. So he's your brother!"

"Yes; I was sure I was right," she smiled. "We're friends already, aren't we?"

"We are," Huntington acquiesced gravely; "and I shall do something particularly nice for Billy to show my appreciation of what he has done for me."

Mrs. Thatcher caught the general drift of her daughter's conversation, and she leaned across the table.

"Are you not a Harvard man, Mr. Huntington?" she asked. "If so, you and Mr. Hamlen must have been in college at about the same time."

"Yes," Huntington replied; and turning to Hamlen he gave the year of his graduation.

"That was my Class also," was the reply; but there was nothing in Hamlen's manner to invite reminiscence.

"Hamlen--Philip Hamlen," Huntington repeated meditatively. "I don't believe we knew each other, did we? But the name is familiar. I have it! You are the lost Philip Hamlen our Class Secretary has been searching for; I have seen the name in the list of missing men each time a Class Report has been issued. You must send him your history, my dear fellow. We're proud of our Class, and we don't want to lose sight of a single member."

There was a bitterness in Hamlen's voice as he replied. "My history would interest no one; it is better that I remain among the 'missing men.'"

Huntington sensed at once what lay behind his classmate's response. "No college graduate can afford to do that," he expostulated. "Whether one wishes it so or not, he has accepted a heritage which carries with it responsibilities, and these force him to his capacity for the honor of his Class and of his Alma Mater."

Mrs. Thatcher was following the conversation not only with interest, but with a certain degree of anxiety.

"Mr. Huntington is right, Philip," she added; "you know that he is right."

Hamlen moved uneasily in his chair. "It is curious how much more interested our classmates become in us after we separate than while we are together in college," he said significantly.

"Why is it curious?" Huntington persisted. "Why is it not the natural sequence of events?"

"You could not understand." Hamlen spoke with rising emotion. "You had everything in college; I had nothing. You remember my name only because you've seen it listed amongst the 'missing men'; but I knew you the moment I saw you. Back there you were Monty Huntington, manager of the crew, member of all the exclusive societies, in everything, a part of everything. Your classmates courted your acquaintance, and the four years at Cambridge meant something to you. To me they meant nothing except what I learned in the class-rooms. You as an alumnus owe all that you say to the Class and to the Alma Mater, for both gave you much; I owe them nothing, for they gave me nothing."

"My dear fellow!" Huntington expostulated hastily, "forgive me for touching on so tender a subject; yet I am glad I did, for it is only fair that you let me set you right. The college world is a small one, and its citizens are young, untried boys. They are sometimes selfish and cruel and unreasonable without meaning it, while they are enjoying what is to most of them their first freedom, and they are trying to conduct themselves like full-grown men. There are heartburns which at the time seem tragedies. Then the undeveloped citizens of this little world, the biggest of them, pass out into the great world, for which the college life is only a training-school, and become infinitesimal parts of it. There the ratio becomes readjusted. What seemed essentials--like the clubs, for instance, or athletics--become non-essentials as the men look back upon them; become simply pleasant memories of delightful companionship. The next few years represent the real trying-out period, and each member of the Class measures up his fellow-members by what they have done since college. The mere fact of being members of the same Class is the bond. I don't care what you did in college, Hamlen; but I sha'n't let you get away from me until you tell me what you've done since, or until you promise that I shall see you when next you come to Boston. The fact that I didn't know you in college makes me the more keen to know you now."

"I thank you a thousand times!" Mrs. Thatcher cried impulsively. "What you have said in five minutes will do more to set Mr. Hamlen right than weeks of argument from me. I found him to-day in a veritable paradise which he has built here, and where he has lived alone practically since he left college. I am trying to persuade him to come back into the world again, and you can help me to accomplish it."

Hamlen was visibly affected by Huntington's cordiality. "This has been a bewildering day," he said. "For over twenty years I have lived alone, nursing a resentment toward college and life in general until it has come to be a religion. This afternoon Mrs. Thatcher finds me unexpectedly and begins to batter down my defenses; now Mr. Huntington, without realizing it, attempts to complete the demolition. Don't wonder that I'm not myself to-night; but I thank my classmate for what he has said, just as I thank Mrs. Thatcher for her earlier efforts."

"Mr. Huntington," Thatcher remarked, "you have given Stevens and me a new idea of the value of a college degree. I wasn't especially keen about having my boy go to college, but now, by George! I wouldn't have it otherwise."

"Huntington is a living propagandum for Harvard," Cosden said lightly, realizing the desirability of leading the conversation into a less serious channel. "My degree represents simply an additional tool to use in carving out success, to him it means idolatry. If Huntington's house was on fire, I should expect to see him climbing down the firemen's ladder in his pink pajamas with his precious sheepskin under his arm carried as tenderly as a mother would a child."

"Oh, you may make light of it," Huntington replied good-naturedly, "but Hamlen and I are treading on sacred ground. The one weakness of college life is that the opportunities it offers come before we are competent to appreciate or embrace them. That is what brings about the condition which he has misunderstood. It would be much better if we all could have two years of college when we're seventeen and the other two when we're forty."

The conversation drifted into smoother channels, but by the time the party separated the acquaintance had developed to a point far beyond an ordinary first meeting. Underneath it different elements were at work in each one's mind and heart, put in motion by the unexpected intensity of almost the earliest words which had been exchanged. Hamlen was the first to leave. He said good-night casually to the group, but managed to separate Huntington from the others.

"You have done much for one of your classmates to-night," he said simply. "I thank you for it."

"Nonsense!" Huntington protested. "I'm more than delighted to have this opportunity to know you--and I want to know you better."